Where have these people been?

Keith MagillExecutive Editor

Published: Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 10:26 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 10:26 p.m.

After decades of warnings, you might think most Terrebonne and Lafourche residents at least recognize the significant threat coastal erosion, sinking land and rising seas pose to our existence as a community.

Nah.

The latest evidence that we have yet to come to grips with the facts comes in response to a question The Courier and Daily Comet asked visitors to their websites over the past week.

What is your view about the following statement: Climate change, rising sea levels and coastal erosion will make it extremely difficult or impossible to live in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes within my lifetime.

And here is how the roughly 800 responses broke down as of late Friday evening:

Agree: 37 percent.

Disagree: 51 percent.

Not sure: 11 percent.

Sure, the poll is admittedly unscientific, but what planet do the 51 percent of the people who answered “disagree” live on?

Even if they don’t read newspapers, watch TV or listen to people who talk about these threats, they might wonder about what’s going on around them.

Take Dulac, for instance, where census figures show 40 percent of residents left in the decade ending in 2010 because, many said in interviews, they can no longer endure the repeated flooding. Or how about Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny Terrebonne island community that has shrunk from 80 families in 2002 to about two dozen now?

Why does the 51 percent think levees have been built around Leonard Chabert Medical Center in Houma and the Terrebonne jail in Ashland?

Why do they think the Army Corps of Engineers, in decertifying south Lafourche’s levee, lacks confidence that it will protect the residents within it from hurricanes?

Why, the 51 percent might wonder, have homeowners insurance prices skyrocketed, particularly since Hurricane Katrina? Why are so few private companies willing to offer homeowners policies that most now come from Citizens, the state insurer of last resort?

Why are the new flood maps FEMA is planning to release for Terrebonne and Lafourche going to put more homes and businesses than ever in high-risk flood zones, forcing flood insurance prices higher for many. Why are local officials so worried that federal flood-insurance reforms enacted last year will make flood insurance unaffordable for many coastal residents?

Those who fish might wonder what happened to the solid land and marshes and islands that have shrunk or vanished over their lifetimes. And, hey, why is our community spending hundreds of millions of dollars of local tax money to build a 72-mile string of levees, locks and floodgates across Terrebonne?

Maybe it was the way we asked the poll question. Maybe using the words “climate change” in a mostly conservative community skewed the results toward “disagree.” But even if you don’t believe in global warming or its causes or effects, coastal erosion and sinking land have been so well documented and debated for so long that you have to wonder where they have been.

Maybe they haven’t heard about the 2011 study by U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette that says by 2066, at least 5 percent of La. 1 in south Lafourche could be submerged year-round, the result of sinking land and rising seas. Or the federal study released earlier this year that shows that in Terrebonne and Lafourche, seas are rising and land sinking at some of the fastest rates in the world. Among specifics, it estimates that Grand Isle will see seas 3 feet higher by 2100.

Maybe they weren’t aware that one federal agency, in remapping Louisiana’s coast in 2011, found so many lakes, bays and bayous have turned to open water than it removed nearly three dozen place names from the map.

All of these things, not to mention the occasional hurricane, have already made life extremely difficult for a lot of people around here.

Maybe it hasn’t been difficult enough for the 51 percent to “agree.” Or maybe they think they won’t live long enough to see the kinds of problems that would make it extremely difficult or impossible to live here. Maybe they would stay no matter how difficult or impossible it might seem. Or maybe the 51 percent is optimistic a solution will be found that will make an exodus unnecessary.

<p>After decades of warnings, you might think most Terrebonne and Lafourche residents at least recognize the significant threat coastal erosion, sinking land and rising seas pose to our existence as a community.</p><p>Nah.</p><p>The latest evidence that we have yet to come to grips with the facts comes in response to a question The Courier and Daily Comet asked visitors to their websites over the past week.</p><p>What is your view about the following statement: Climate change, rising sea levels and coastal erosion will make it extremely difficult or impossible to live in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes within my lifetime.</p><p>And here is how the roughly 800 responses broke down as of late Friday evening:</p><p>Agree: 37 percent.</p><p>Disagree: 51 percent.</p><p>Not sure: 11 percent.</p><p>Sure, the poll is admittedly unscientific, but what planet do the 51 percent of the people who answered “disagree” live on?</p><p>Even if they don't read newspapers, watch TV or listen to people who talk about these threats, they might wonder about what's going on around them.</p><p>Take Dulac, for instance, where census figures show 40 percent of residents left in the decade ending in 2010 because, many said in interviews, they can no longer endure the repeated flooding. Or how about Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny Terrebonne island community that has shrunk from 80 families in 2002 to about two dozen now?</p><p>Why does the 51 percent think levees have been built around Leonard Chabert Medical Center in Houma and the Terrebonne jail in Ashland?</p><p>Why do they think the Army Corps of Engineers, in decertifying south Lafourche's levee, lacks confidence that it will protect the residents within it from hurricanes?</p><p>Why, the 51 percent might wonder, have homeowners insurance prices skyrocketed, particularly since Hurricane Katrina? Why are so few private companies willing to offer homeowners policies that most now come from Citizens, the state insurer of last resort?</p><p>Why are the new flood maps FEMA is planning to release for Terrebonne and Lafourche going to put more homes and businesses than ever in high-risk flood zones, forcing flood insurance prices higher for many. Why are local officials so worried that federal flood-insurance reforms enacted last year will make flood insurance unaffordable for many coastal residents?</p><p>Those who fish might wonder what happened to the solid land and marshes and islands that have shrunk or vanished over their lifetimes. And, hey, why is our community spending hundreds of millions of dollars of local tax money to build a 72-mile string of levees, locks and floodgates across Terrebonne?</p><p>Maybe it was the way we asked the poll question. Maybe using the words “climate change” in a mostly conservative community skewed the results toward “disagree.” But even if you don't believe in global warming or its causes or effects, coastal erosion and sinking land have been so well documented and debated for so long that you have to wonder where they have been.</p><p>Maybe they haven't heard about the 2011 study by U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette that says by 2066, at least 5 percent of La. 1 in south Lafourche could be submerged year-round, the result of sinking land and rising seas. Or the federal study released earlier this year that shows that in Terrebonne and Lafourche, seas are rising and land sinking at some of the fastest rates in the world. Among specifics, it estimates that Grand Isle will see seas 3 feet higher by 2100.</p><p>Maybe they weren't aware that one federal agency, in remapping Louisiana's coast in 2011, found so many lakes, bays and bayous have turned to open water than it removed nearly three dozen place names from the map.</p><p>All of these things, not to mention the occasional hurricane, have already made life extremely difficult for a lot of people around here.</p><p>Maybe it hasn't been difficult enough for the 51 percent to “agree.” Or maybe they think they won't live long enough to see the kinds of problems that would make it extremely difficult or impossible to live here. Maybe they would stay no matter how difficult or impossible it might seem. Or maybe the 51 percent is optimistic a solution will be found that will make an exodus unnecessary.</p><p>What do you think?</p><p>You can take the poll through Monday morning at houmatoday.com.</p>